by Tracy Falbe
Thal embraced her. “I can teach you to chant the spell,” he said.
She looked over at Sarputeen’s shrouded body. She hated the coarse cloth concealing his face. Never would she look into those mysterious eyes again, but his magic lived on in her flesh.
“It’s too soon,” she whispered.
Thal understood. He invited her to rest with him. They covered themselves in their furs and drifted to sleep with the scent of Sarputeen’s blood in their nostrils and the mournful howls of the pack in the background.
The next day, they prepared to leave. They found a sled in the stable and loaded Sarputeen’s body. Every time that Thal looked at the shrouded form, disbelief jolted his shredded emotions.
“Thal.” Valentino spoke gently, sensitive to his friend’s battered state.
“Yes.”
“Forgive me if this seems indelicate, but can I load some boxes on this sled?” Valentino asked.
“Of what?” Thal asked dully.
“I’ve presumed to collect some spoils, on your behalf of course,” Valentino said.
Thal nodded slowly. Grief gave him no excuse to be impractical.
Valentino continued, “Gold and silver coins from both empires were quite in abundance. I’m sure I could find more. I’ve barely scratched the surface of this place’s hidey holes.”
“Take care. There could be more traps in this building,” Thal said.
“Perhaps we’ve found enough then. No need to be greedy,” Valentino said soberly. “Everyone has been outfitting themselves handsomely from the armory.” He patted a sword in an ornate scabbard.
“That’s good, but let us leave this place as soon as possible. It’s secrets can stay hidden,” Thal said.
“Should we put the place to the torch?” Valentino inquired.
Thal looked up the tower. Flames might gut it but the walls would endure for a long time. He wondered how the locals would explain the blackened hulk. Would they speak his name with fear as they now did in other places?
“Yes. Burn it,” he said.
******
The journey homeward began with bright flames licking the night as the tower transformed into a black dragon belching fire. Valentino had found ample stores of oils, and his men had excelled in their acts of arson.
The deep snows had forced the abandonment of the canons. This choice vexed Valentino, but the task of hauling them through the snowy frontier was too daunting. He had to satisfy himself with the taking of every horse and sidearm that he could find.
The werewolves prowled along the roadside as the sled advanced through the night. The lads in the service of Valentino had horses to ride now, and they led others on leads that they had taken from the tower’s stable. They chatted excitedly about their new possessions for they had claimed as many new clothes and gear as they could carry.
Lenki veered close to Mileko’s course. He smiled at her shining eyes. Her feet made a light crunching sound as they swished through the snow. He looked forward to the next night when the moon would wane and she could be a woman at his side.
Thal and Altea walked behind the sled. Thal valued the sympathetic presence of his pack and reflected on the many gifts that his father had given him.
“I think that he knew that he would die on this journey,” he said after trudging in silence for half the night.
In retrospect, Altea realized the truth of Thal’s guess and suspected that Sarputeen had not shared everything that he had seen in his casting of the rune bones.
“He should have told us. We could have found another way,” she said.
“He made his choice. We must try and think it wise now,” Thal said.
“I suppose all that he did was wise in some way,” Altea said.
“Chant the spell with me,” Thal invited and took her hand.
She gripped it tight. The moon shone on the white fur around her shoulders. She noticed suddenly that it was cleansed of blood stains. The white fur looked as clean and pure as the snow.
She forced herself to consider what Sarputeen had given her. “Do you think I’ll be white?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said and stopped. The sled continued with the horses and men.
“We had him for so brief a time,” she lamented.
Jagged emotions carved chunks from Thal’s heart, but he kept his composure. He would pace his mourning because he knew that it would last a long time.
“Let us walk in his world under the moon to honor him,” Thal proposed, and reluctantly she nodded.
They stripped in the empty countryside. Thal admired her body. Her scars were not as bright as they used to be. They would never fade entirely, but he knew that his mate could now join him as his true equal and he was grateful.
Patiently, he taught her how to say the strange worlds inscribed on the skin. Tears streamed down her face as she hugged the fur and recited the spell. She cried out her name to summon the magic.
The transformation started slowly, and Thal watched helplessly as she suffered through a prolonged transformation. She convulsed in extreme pain. Her skin stretched and bulged in slow motion while fur sprouted. The fur grew in white, and she gasped for air when the transformation was finally complete. She looked herself over and raised her head and howled. The long and heartbreaking note called to her maker who could never answer.
Thal shifted to his werewolf form. They stroked their shoulders and sides and admired each other in their animal form. Thal took in the details of her new appearance and imagined the life that they would lead. The bliss of the wild would always be theirs to share. They would always face rejection, but they still possessed the power to survive.
******
A fortnight later as the moon lapsed into its dark hiding place, Thal led his group up the winding road to Vlkbohveza. Pine boughs drooped beneath heavy mountain snow, and everyone took turns at the head of the group slogging through the snow. They had encountered no enemies on the journey home, and the secretive peace of the remote mountain side enveloped them as they labored through the final steps to their sanctuary.
The villagers turned out and observed the passage of the body on the sled. No one needed to ask if it was Sarputeen. They bowed to Thal and Altea as they walked solemnly behind the sled on their way to their castle.
Thal was the first to spot the woman on the ramparts as they approached the gate.
“Valentino, do you see her?!” he called. It was the loudest he had raised his voice during the somber trek home.
“Carmelita!” Valentino yelled and waved.
The woman’s head disappeared from the ramparts as she rushed down the steps. Valentino jumped off his horse and he yanked the gates open like a giant breaking into a doll house.
Carmelita stood with flushed cheeks a few paces behind the gate. She looked at him with hope that blossomed into joyous recognition. The Condottiere swept her off her feet and spun around. He set her down gently though for her heavier and rounder body had informed him how far her pregnancy had advanced.
They laughed tearfully and kissed in a display of happiness proportionate to their intense hardship and despair.
“Oh, brilliant woman,” Valentino rejoiced. “You saved me, but you should not have taken the risk.”
“You would have done the same for me,” she said.
“A thousand times I would do it,” he agreed and held her close so that he could let the reality of her presence sink in.
“Are you well?” he asked.
“Yes. Lord Sarputeen predicted that I would have a healthy babe,” she said.
At the mention of Sarputeen, gloominess intruded upon Valentino’s joy, but he did not want to spoil the pleasure of the moment with bad news.
Carmelita saw that Thal had entered, and she rushed to him. She kissed his hands and gushed with worshipful gratitude. “Lord Thal, I knew you could work this miracle. Only you could do it,” she said.
Thal said jokingly, “My Lady, you tread close to blasphe
my.”
“I care not for that,” she said with tears dancing on her singing eyes. Her rebellious nature rejoiced because Thal had made her deepest wish come true.
“Valentino was in a bad spot as you said,” Thal reported.
“I’ve never been one to exaggerate,” Carmelita said. She looked over the group entering the castle. “Has everyone returned?” she asked, and concern subtracted from her exuberance.
“Alas, my father has fallen,” Thal said. “But our enemies are defeated.”
He had masked his grief briefly so as not to cast a shadow on Carmelita’s reunion with her husband, but his aggrieved expression returned when he looked at the sled that had come to rest in the center of the courtyard.
“I’m ever so sorry,” Carmelita said sincerely.
“I appreciate that,” Thal said.
Altea came forward to hug Carmelita. The fallen noble woman looked at the younger woman with wonder. She presumed to touch Altea’s hair that was now streaked liberally with white.
“I’m eager to look in a mirror and see it for myself,” Altea said. Thal had told her what it looked like and insisted that she was more beautiful than ever, but she expected the change to challenge her vanity.
Tactfully, Carmelita chose not to ask what had happened to Altea. She assumed that it involved something that she could not understand.
“I’m sure you and Valentino would like some time alone,” Altea said, and the couple’s eyes twinkled with agreement.
“I’ll see to your men,” Thal said because Valentino knew nothing of the castle yet. The four lads who had volunteered had stayed on. They had seen too much to return to hardscrabble bandit life or routine village existence.
He approached Emil who stood over the sled aghast. Although the young man did not cry, his dismay at the death of his master was clear.
“We have a funeral to plan,” Thal said.
Emil whispered, “I can’t believe this.”
“He vanquished his enemy and died well,” Thal recounted in a hollow tone.
“Then you are the Lord of Vlkbohveza now,” Emil said and kneeled.
“I hope that I will be able to depend on you as my father did,” Thal said.
Overcoming his shock a little, Emil said, “I will honor his memory with my service to you.”
“I’ve no doubt of it,” Thal said.
Chapter 45. The Guardian
Thal buried his father in the glen where they had made the werewolves. Every night after the funeral, he returned to the spot and gave himself over to his grief. He transformed and sang his haunted sorrows. Altea joined him and developed her own howling voice. The wolfen singing seemed so much better suited to mourning than any sound a person could make.
After a few nights, the voices of the wolves in the mountains echoed their sad songs. A beautiful sadness settled over the alpine wilds, and the sublime grandeur of the forest and snowy peaks offered the only monument worthy of Sarputeen. Winter, the season of death, sang dirges with the moaning winds.
Another full moon came and went before they ceased their nightly visits to the grave. The first night that Thal stayed at the castle, he attempted to go through the motions of someone who must become oriented to an inherited estate.
He left Altea and Carmelita by a crackling fireplace where they worked on new clothes for the expected infant. He reluctantly approached his father’s study. The candelabrum in his hand spread uncertain light around the room. Nothing had been touched since his father had walked out for the final time. A sheen of dust dulled the glossy old wood of the desk. The sooty fireplace gaped draftily.
Thal set the candles on the desk and approached the back of the room. He felt knowingly along the cool stones until he found the crevice that marked the concealed space. Pistol sniffed the area approvingly and scratched at the stone as Thal moved it aside. He pulled out the pile of books. He felt around but found nothing else.
He took the books to the desk and started examining them reverently in the flickering light. Dry leather bindings and heavy parchment creaked beneath his fingers as he perused various scripts and illustrations. Some writing was decipherable to his eyes and some was not. Thal glumly accepted that he might never possess the knowledge to read all of these books without his father. How many places had Sarputeen visited in his long life? How many universities had he studied at? How many secret people in the forests and mountains had he learned from?
Thal resolved to study these books and learn what he could. He knew that more journals and books resided in his father’s workshop. With so many opportunities to improve his knowledge at hand, he had a duty to educate himself. His defenses against a turbulent and hostile world relied on it.
Pistol trotted to the doorway and welcomed Lenki at the entrance. She appeared to be waiting for permission to enter. Thal shut the book in front of him and gestured for her to come forward.
He sensed her discomfort and wondered what her business was. He realized that if anything had been amiss with her lately, he would not have noticed due to his grievous fugue.
“What troubles you?” he asked.
His kind voice relaxed her a little. “I’ve come to ask your permission for something, Lord Thal,” she said with quiet formality.
“And you think that I will not like it?” he guessed.
“I fear that I overstep my place to even ask it,” she admitted and looked down. The humility really did not suit her.
“I’ve not known much to restrain your boldness,” he remarked.
She looked up, and her shameless eyes made him feel again the desire for her to weave spells around him and clothe him in dreamy novelty.
“I am restrained by my duty to my master,” she said.
“I place no restraint upon what you might ask,” he said.
“Even if I ask to leave?” she said.
The weight of her request explained her reluctance. She wanted to leave her maker and leave the pack, and he had not considered that she or the others might want this. His basest instinct wanted possession of her because he had made her what she was, and he had done it so that she could serve him. But these harsh truths were not the sum of his feelings. His magic was not meant to be a cage.
“What prompts this request?” he asked worriedly.
“Mileko wishes to travel, and I want to go with him,” she answered.
“Oh,” Thal said, recalling how a relationship had developed between them. As he considered things, he was not surprised that Mileko intended to leave. His relationship with his father’s protege had been based on pressing practicalities instead of sentimentality. Mileko had already lived years at Vlkbohveza and naturally wanted to pursue his own destiny. Thal had no claim upon the man although he expected that Vlkbohveza would be poorer for his absence.
“Where do you plan to travel?” Thal said.
His question hinted that he was about to give permission, and she said excitedly, “He will show me Prague and then we’ll go together to Paris and see it for the first time together.”
“You will have to take care during the full moons. People must not see what you are,” Thal said.
“I know,” she said gravely.
“I’ve given my pledge to Duke Thurzo that my werewolves will not harm his people. You must not commit violent crimes in this land or hopefully in the places that you go,” Thal said.
“Do you think I can’t control myself, my Lord?” she asked somewhat peevishly.
“I think that the world will test your temper,” he said.
Lenki could not argue with his point. “Mileko’s influence will teach me prudence,” she said.
Thal asked, “Have you talked to your pack mates about this?”
“Only Ansel. He encouraged me to talk to you,” Lenki said.
“So you plotted to simply slip away?” Thal surmised.
“It was just a thought, but I could not my Lord,” she said.
“Would you stay if I forbade your departure?” he a
sked.
She recoiled slightly, repulsed by the notion of choosing between him and Mileko. Lifting her chin, she said, “I would stay if you command it. I will always be yours to command.”
Her steely affirmation of their bond impressed Thal, but he had nothing to gain from testing her so sternly. Since she would soon cease to be under his influence, he had to address a serious matter. “Lenki, you must promise that you won’t make other werewolves. You must not bite anyone except to kill. Otherwise, you’ll make a werewolf but a weak one. Father taught me that they should be made with ritual and ceremony after drinking the potion of making. Without this, a new werewolf would have no mastery of himself when the moon is full. A werewolf made from the unwilling is an ugly sorrow. Promise me that you won’t let this thing happen.”
“I do promise it, my Lord,” she said earnestly.
“Good,” he said and took her hands. “Travel the world as it pleases you, Lenki. Go with my blessing.”
Lenki squeezed his hands, and a joyous smile brightened her delicately devious face. She gave up keeping any distance between them and threw her arms around him. With her cheek upon his shoulder, she said into his ear, “I’ll come back to you someday.”
Thal allowed himself to brush his fingers across her sleek hair. Her inky locks had gained some length. Her body next to his summoned the vivid memories of her making when his teeth had seized her flesh. He believed that she would return him.
Clearing his throat, he stepped back. “Lenki, I think that you shall find much happiness with Mileko.”
“I already have,” she beamed, seeming to forget her embrace of the werelord.
“Fetch the pack and have them meet me in the hall so that you can share the news,” he said.
She seemed about to leave, but then she tossed her arms around him again. “I thank you for making me what I am now. Never did I imagine such a life, or any life really. You changed everything.” She squeezed him with intense gratitude and then darted away.
Her words resurrected the memory of Harvath’s dying words, and he contemplated the allure of the magic. He had rejected his chance to live as a simple man long ago and could not imagine making any other decision.
